The last whispers of leaves rustling and crunching gently together had already faded and though the day had been hot, at least it was dry unlike some of the less fortunate summers spent in youthful exile. The baleful yellow eye staring hatefully upon the gathered friends and lovers had long fled, leaving the kind of warm darkness under the boughs of the trees that envelopes you like velvet, caressing with every passing step and carpeting the world in silence so absolute that you don't just hear the deep thump of your own heart beating but the splashing blood coursing through you as well, like a child playing in a puddle but somehow deeper. An endless black well leading into the gentle oblivion of exhaustion where the waking mind wanders, flirting with the subconscious in a gentle seduction and, as you dip your toes into it, you feel the deep undercurrents pulling at you down into the inky starlight reflected upon the rippled waters.
The wood itself stretched away from the small encampment with a predatory grace. Trees both thick and slender towered beyond the firelight, the bare earth quickly devoured by a thick green fur creeping along both wood and stone, while coarse briars of flowers, berries, thorns, and saw-edged leaves. The trails well worn through the wild still crawled with roots and moss, and if a bramble had dared creep into the path the end of it was often cracked or broken completely by the flight of some beast. It was down one of these quiet, empty trails that a young girl danced, her eyes alight with all of the cold blue fire of the stars above as they peeked through leaf and bough and her hair caressing the wind like countless silk ribbons stained a deep red with the juice of blackberries.
Each step she took was light and full footed, neither running away nor running toward somewhere. Her body bare, gently embraced by a cloak of the living night, the youthful confidence that comes with knowing that the young can never die, and a faint scent of clover and licorice from her loose chestnut hair as it played around her neck and ears, tickling her gently with each twist in the wind. It was chestnut wasn't it? It had seemed to very red just moments before.
Her delicate feet found a stream-bed, soft smooth rocks, damp thick moss, and countless footprints of those lesser creatures that had preceded her majestic flight through the woods, thought they'd not have guessed it. The forest itself coming more awake with every step, deeper and deeper into the darkness where the stars burned brighter and now cricket and cicadas triumphantly announced her arrival to the rustling approval of the leaves above her before they parted abruptly. A deep, dark mirror of the sky rippled gently in the pool beyond the edge of the treeline and as she gazed down into it she knew yesterday was dust and tomorrow would never be. There was only this moment, shattered and broken like her reflection in the still waters as the beast rose dripping from the depths.
There were reasons why her friends had all agreed to leave society and vacation in the deep wild. They'd long ago found a forgotten library of magic tomes, and times being what they were the Arts were considered dark forces best left untouched by simpleminded Gods-fearing folk like their parents. There were dark fairy-stories told about little children who went poking around wizards and witches and warlocks. They all ended the same way, with that little boy cursed, or that little girl transformed and threatened daily with the oven and a fine coat of olive oil to help make her outsides crackle. After they'd found the Library they'd realized what nonsense it was. There were no murderous wizards baking little children in ovens. There were no alchemists playing god and making monsters. There weren't. The chimera begged to differ.
She had mistaken its head for a moss covered rock before it began to move, the green so deep it was nearly black under the light of the stars. It opened a single eye, slightly off center of the top of its head as it eased out of the deep toward her, its maw curling back into something resembling a grin and full of needle-like teeth each the length a full grown man's hand. Another eye opened, and then another as it slid up and out toward Elsie, its grin pulling back even further, teeth protruding, as the eyes continued to blossom like open sores all over its head and across its neck and shoulders. Half crawling and half dragging it hoisted itself above her, matted fur dripping wet from the the waters.
Transfixed, she stood still as a stone while her heart quaked and her lip trembled. The creature reached out with it's claw while it held itself out of the water with the other three, unwinding coils from the darkness to snake through the shoreline, and stroked her nipple gently with the back of its nail, raising gooseflesh all over her body and tightening a chill within her deeper than any fear she had ever known, then it whispered, "Run, tasty little sweetling," and she did. It's laugh was a guttural inhuman thing manufactured deep within its
throat and oozing out through it's teeth down into her bones without ever
truly reaching her ears.
It was still laughing when it began crashing through the forest after her.
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